School Board member and CID director move from blighted to non-blighted neighborhood

COLUMBIA, 7/10/12 (Beat Byte) -- Talk about voting with your feet!

Former EEZ/Blight Board membersJonathan Sessions and Carrie Gartner have left their home in Columbia's legally-blighted North Central neighborhood for Aldeah Street, outside the City of Columbia's notorious blight zone.

Shortly after City Hall passed a February Resolution blighting North Central Columbia to qualify for a developer tax incentive called the Enhanced Enterprise Zone (EEZ), Sessions and Gartner -- who lived on Rogers Street at the time -- announced to the neighborhood listserv that they were eager to join. At the time, listerv members were boisterously debating and condemning the Blight Decree.

Shortly thereafter, Gartner -- the City of Columbia CID-Downtown director -- and Sessions, a Columbia Public Schools board member -- were appointed to the board overseeing the EEZ/Blight Decree. Sessions later stepped down over conflict of interest allegations and Council members seated a new board that does not include Gartner last month.

The couple then relocated to the Aldeah St. home, which they purchased this spring.

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